Table of Contents
Introduction
Page 2
Part 1: How to Build a Business That Runs Itself Warning! Don’t Hire an Assistant Until… Page 4 How Outsourcing Works Page 6 12 Tasks a Virtual Assistant Can Do for You Page 10
Part 2: Find and Hire Your New Assistant What Makes a Good Virtual Assistant?
Page 20
Where Should Your Assistant Be Located?
Page 22
Where Will You Find Your Assistant?
Page 24
Job Advertisement Examples
Page 28
Qualifying Applicants for an Assistant Job
Page 33
First Steps in Hiring Your Assistant
Page 43
Part 3: How to Manage Your Virtual Assistant Training, Productivity, Tracking and Updates
Page 47
Introduction Hi, guys. It's Calvin Curry here. If you’re anything like me, I’m willing to bet you didn’t get into real estate to make a bunch of cold calls, enter data, and keep up with a bunch of less-than-exciting tasks. You probably got into the business to buy and sell houses — and make some serious dough.
In the many years I’ve been involved in the real estate industry, I have had plenty of time (and reason) to assess real estate agent business success. Would you like to know the #1 thing that holds back most real estate agents from true success? Is it lack of knowledge, skills, and ambition? Is it competition or market spirals? No. It’s all the daily administrative work real estate agents do that eats into the thousands of dollars in commissions they should be focusing on instead. I have a question for you. Are you building a business? Or building a job? Are you spending all your time doing work that someone else could (should) be handling for you, such as researching leads and property data, finding phone numbers, or contacting leads? Somebody else can easily and readily handle these smaller and time-consuming tasks. Unfortunately, real estate agents become so busy that they end up doing all of the work themselves, holding them back from focusing on their clients and landing deals. Here are some examples of tasks you perform that distract you from your clients and buying and selling houses: ● compiling and generating leads
● cold calling ● marketing
● social media management ● marketing your listings ● following up with leads ● giving your listings updates and feedback on showings ● closing coordinator work
2
Here’s the thing: What is your time really worth? You can’t make $200,000 a year if you have too much on your plate. You need to admit to yourself that some tasks can be delegated to someone else. I understand the temptation to do everything yourself. You have so much to do, and it seems easier to just do it all yourself, rather than take the time to hire someone to do it for you, then keep track of their work and pay them, etc. So, what’s the solution? It’s easy: Hire a virtual assistant. Once you hire a virtual assistant, you can give them three or four tasks you would have normally done yourself — and you don’t have to break the bank to hire someone. Then, you can start leveraging your virtual assistants and free up your time to focus on activities that are truly valuable to you as an agent. For example, do you usually answer the phone when other agents call in with feedback on your listings? You could hire a virtual assistant to email disclosures out to another Realtor® or answer a question about a listing. You can have your virtual assistant follow up with the lender on a closing, order a survey, enhance your pictures, email clients, or work on your website. All of this can be handled by someone other than you.
3
Part 1: Build a Business That Runs Itself Warning! Don’t Hire an Assistant Until You’ve Read This An agent I know started a large real estate team years ago. He had his share of success. The people on his team sold hundreds of homes every year. However, it was all destroyed because this agent didn’t know one important thing. You might be thinking that his team was destroyed by the recession, but that’s not correct. It was destroyed because the agent who started the team made one error that cost him millions of dollars in commissions over the years. Because of this error, he destroyed his real estate team. I don’t want you to lose millions of dollars, so here’s what he did wrong: He tried to leverage his business with in-house assistants . He spent money to advertise for help. He spent time interviewing and hiring. He trained an assistant to work for him and shared all his secrets about building and growing his business. Then, after some time, the assistant went into real estate for himself and competed with him — using his own absolute best ideas. This agent accidently destroyed his business as a byproduct of building his business. He had this happen with four different in-house assistants who went out and competed with him in real estate using his own well-honed strategies and tactics. There’s nothing wrong with people using innovative marketing; however, each Realtor® has a slightly different strategy that works perfectly for them. In learning the team’s tactics and strategies, these former assistants and now-real estate agents began to compete and destabilize his business because he had inadvertently taught them how to compete with him. Of course, the team had a non-compete contract with the assistants. But it was very difficult to enforce a non-compete and sue a co-worker. And while a lawsuit drags on, the harm continues. To build a rock-solid business, you need to hire virtual assistants, preferably at a considerable physical distance from you. You can hire an excellent, even incredible salesperson to do a great deal of the work for you, who isn’t likely to enter into direct competition with you or come and steal
4
your market share. In the case of overseas virtual assistants, it would be nearly impossible for them to come to the U.S., become licensed, obtain their citizenship, and compete head-to-head with you in real estate.
5
How Outsourcing Works Assistant vs. Freelancer - What’s the Difference?
It’s important to know the difference between a freelancer, who works with you once, or on an ad hoc basis, and then moves on, and an assistant, who is tied to your real estate agency more closely. Keeping in mind the distinction between freelancers and virtual assistants will help you decide which types of jobs to outsource to a freelancer and which jobs require a personal virtual assistant. Consider job security. A freelancer works for many people at the same time. Freelancers aren’t quite concerned about job security; they want to be paid for the job done and move on to the next assignment. Because of this, they usually work very fast, and are more than efficient in their jobs. Generally, they are experts in their areas. Freelancers are excellent for one-off creative tasks. Their priority, however, is naturally the client who pays them the most and the most quickly. In a situation in which freelancers have several jobs and get pressed for time, they are likely to focus on the work given to them by the client who’s going to pay the most money the most quickly. That’s just natural. When do I hire a freelancer? I have found that if I have a very detailed job that needs to be done, but I’m not paying much money to the freelancer doing it, odds are that the freelancer will bid on other jobs even while working on my job. Because of this, your work may sometimes be delayed, or take a little while longer than you expect. That’s the mentality and process of how freelancers make a living. Why I Prefer an Assistant Personally, I prefer the assistant relationship. The goal of a VA is to work for someone who’s willing to consistently provide employment. Whether it’s an hourly wage or a set salary per month or per week, VAs want job security. I find it best that virtual assistants work exclusively for me. When I hire VAs, I don’t like them working for me and for somebody else part-time. When they do, they’re often spread too thin and might not prioritize my work. Let’s move on to experience. The freelancer is at an advantage here. The task for which you’re hiring a freelancer — graphic design, online marketing, proofreading, etc. — is what he/she professionally does for a living. Freelancers will have experience and expertise in the area of work you plan on having them do.
6
We’ll consider graphic design again. In this case, your goal is to find somebody who has done quite a significant amount of graphic design (successfully) in the past, in which case he/she will have great reviews and good ratings on projects. For example, let’s assume you put a project on freelancer.com, with the goal to have your company logo designed in the next 36 hours. You can’t hire a writer to do the logo job, simply because he or she likely won’t know how. You need to look for someone who specializes in the area you need — in this case, graphic design. You’ll need to use freelancers selectively. In the case of a virtual assistant, a person who will work on a full-time basis for you, you’ll hand them many different and diverse projects. Let’s say you need someone to build your website, but also write articles for the site, and then do some graphic design work, respond to people’s questions, do customer support, and monitor the Facebook account. As the number of projects delegated increases, VAs will spread themselves thinner, resulting in quality reduction. This is especially true if VAs don’t have a lot of experience in all the areas for which you need help. Maybe they’re excellent in graphics and do a good job at web development, but they’re just not skilled with customer communication. Please take this into consideration. If you decide to trust VAs with multiple projects, they will likely require training. If I intend to hire somebody for a specific project, I go for the best in the field. For example, I currently work with four or five graphic designers for selected projects. If I want one to enhance photos of homes or edit those pictures, then that’s all the designer will do that day. So, naturally, I want to find a freelancer who possesses skills in graphic design. Graphic designers should know their way around Adobe Photoshop, inDesign, Illustrator or any other graphic design program. Of course, you must check applicants’ specific skills before hiring. If you plan to use VAs for multiple tasks, review their skills. You’ll also want to get a general idea about their intelligence, ability to think on their feet, and ability to learn quickly. If you plan to assign work in a variety of areas, you should carefully weigh each hiring decision. Consider offering and providing training to VAs. This is often a very good opportunity for them to enhance marketable skills, and can be a big motivation for them. If you intend to have work that you need done on a regular basis, and it’s repetitive, then I advise you hire a virtual assistant.
7
On the other hand, if you don’t have repeated work to be done, but rather random projects, then there’s no need to hire a VA; you should opt for a freelancer instead. This works like hiring an independent contractor. He/she arrives, does the job, then leaves. If I want to build a website, but can’t do it myself, I’ll look for somebody to do WordPress installation. This person will need to make the site look professional and attractive, making particular design decisions. The person really needs to know their way around WordPress, but this is a one-time job. After the site is built, I intend to hire article writers, or manage it myself. In this situation, I don’t need to hire a full-time virtual assistant to build a website. Even if I have the option to hire one for a few hundred dollars a month, I can pay someone a one-time fee to build a website, and it will only take a week. There is no need to go through the process of hiring a virtual assistant in this case. Benefits of Outsourcing, Freelancing, or Hiring a Virtual Assistant By outsourcing, you’re going directly to the source without the need for a “middleman.” You cut out the big corporate company or agency, and go straight to the person who’s going to get work done. You save money on overhead, since virtual employees are in their houses, using their own Internet and their own space. Also, when you hire a freelancer, you don’t pay federal or state taxes on their income or Medicaid, since they are self-employed and they pay their own taxes. You save money hiring a freelancer, compared to an employee. Additionally, the cost of living outside of the U.S. is considerably lower, so overseas outsourcing is efficiently affordable. For many of the same reasons large American corporations choose to internationally outsource, small businesses, such as real estate agencies, can also benefit from the practice. There are also areas of the U.S. where the cost of living isn’t as high as other places, which makes arranging a VA from those areas economically practical. Other types of projects I like to outsource are content creation and writing jobs. If you’re able to effectively explain your guidelines to someone, these are great jobs to delegate. For example, if I need an article for one of my blogs, I’ll see what topic I want for the specific article. Then I’ll do some general research on the topic, and forward it all to freelancers who write the actual article. You can also ask your writer to do his/her own research on the topic. All you need to do is give clear instructions. Make it sound very informational, then he/she will do a good job. There are many options with these types of projects.
8
One more option at your disposal is simple data entry or administrative work. Hire a VA to book travel plans or complete data entry, such as email addresses or mailing lists. Perhaps you have Microsoft (MS) Excel spreadsheets to keep updated — this is an excellent task for virtual assistants. You can use a VA for any work that is repetitive or extensive. For example, I have someone working for me in Google Sheets to create extensive charts for some of our tracking stats. Another project you can outsource is website development. I had a website made for an associate. If I had needed to do it myself, the time and effort would have been quite extensive, on top of my normal workload. I decided to get someone to develop it for me. I have had virtual assistants do customer support, including phone support, email support, and support for businesses I own. My personal favorite when it comes to outsourcing tasks is SEO, the process of getting your website to rank on top of Google’s search engine. This work consists of a lot of data entry, SEO article writing, and back-linking, and can become monotonous and tedious. In addition to photography work, you can also successfully outsource video editing, if that’s a task you don’t enjoy, understand, or have time for. When you shoot a video, post-production usually takes a long time, since film editing is a complex process. It’s not a process I personally want to learn. Luckily, it’s easy to find a freelancer who knows how to do it. For example, let’s assume you record a video or two every month but don’t know how to do the post-production editing. Hiring out the editing can be inexpensive and beneficial. A friend of mine sells homes and usually “walks through” the house with his video camera to create a virtual tour. This is much more effective in today’s real estate market than simply taking pictures. My friend isn’t interested in video editing either, so he hires a freelancer and pays him between $20 and $50. The job was done professionally. The freelancer put together the content my friend filmed, and it was inexpensive and fast. Since the freelancer working on it was from another country, and in a different time zone, when my friend woke up the next morning, he found that it was already done. He then reviewed the film, uploaded it to YouTube and shared with his followers.
9
12 Tasks a Virtual Assistant Can Do for You In this chapter, we will examine a dozen real estate office tasks that can be delegated to off-premises virtual assistants. You can also hire someone to work in-house if you prefer. Task #1: Pull Leads Have a virtual assistant pull leads for you. You can have your VA start with managing, pulling, and prospecting leads I like to call “low-hanging fruit,” such as Expired and For Sale By Owner (FSBO) listings. Your assistant can pull from the REDX to get the Expired and FSBO leads. REDX saves you time by doing the busy work of finding contact information for Expired, FSBO, and other leads like pre-foreclosures. In addition to those standard leads, VAs can help you get the much easier-to-list leads, where you don’t have any competition. This includes vacant homes, inherited homes, divorced-party homes, and homes whose owners who are behind on their property taxes. These leads are much easier to list. A VA can do all the work to find and pull these leads for you using online public records. Your assistant can then search the leads’ phone numbers and mailing addresses. The biggest hurdle with this tactic is that it’s difficult to find the leads. Obtaining leads is the number one task. You can hire a full-time virtual assistant to do nothing but work leads. He/she will quickly master the skills it takes to be successful, and you’ll have an abundance of great leads The next task you can delegate to a virtual assistant is prospecting. Now, if you want to have an assistant use traditional prospecting techniques, like using a script, you can have that person call and set up listing appointments for you. That’s not what I recommend; however, it is an option. I prefer to hire someone to call sellers. This assistant will ensure the person is interested in selling and determine whether the potential seller has an interest in another Realtor®. The assistant must get the seller’s mailing address to mail them your materials. Then, once they’ve been sent, the assistant can follow up three or four days later to set up a listing appointment for you. If your assistant stumbles upon leads that aren’t selling right now, he/she can follow up with those leads later and secure listings for you once the sellers are ready. you can work at any time. Task #2: Prospect
10
Virtual assistants can do all the work and bring you practically pre-sold listing appointments using this method. They can also follow the warm leads method I recommend to prospect and set up listing appointments for you. This is what I do that I find gets the most listings. When I first started out, I did a lot of cold calling. I became good at cold calling — certainly not the best — but I got listings, and that’s what mattered. I developed my own scripts, voice inflection, and methods for handling objections. I knew there was a better way. I put effort into direct mail. Mail worked better than cold calling. I obtained many listings from my direct mail copywriting efforts. Eventually, I found that this method worked best: Mail the seller my materials, then follow up by phone four to five days later. I call this “warm calling.” I get the results that a good cold caller gets — without the rejection. Often, when I follow up, people recognize my name. “Oh, right,” they say. “You’re the guy who mailed that stuff to me!” Another great strategy is to host a free one-hour seminar about what people need to know before buying a house so you could meet now potential clients. This is a type of guerilla marketing technique that can establish you in an area. Your VA could create the PowerPoint presentation, helpful handouts, even find and book a space to host your seminar. One of our members holds seminars at senior assisted living centers, where he finds people who may not have sold their longtime homes. He gives them quality marketing materials and explains the benefits of selling their long-held properties. Task #3: Provide Lead Follow-Up Real estate agents swamped in prospecting, sales, and office administration tasks do not have time to do their own follow-up work. When I was busy getting listings, I listed 10 houses one month. That is all I concentrated on — getting listings. In that same month, I lost several listings because I didn’t have time to follow up on my leads. For example, I met with a seller, and she said she was going to list her house with me. She was just going to wait 30 days to get some final things done before putting it on the market.
11
However, I got so busy over the next 30 days that I didn’t follow up with her. About 45 days later, I realized my mistake and checked the MLS to find that she had listed her house with someone else the day before. The other Realtor® had found her lead, called her, and got the appointment because I hadn’t followed up. That was a listing I could’ve had, but lost. The seller was completely sold on what I could do, but she didn’t list with me because I hadn’t called back. I lost several listings that same month because I was too busy. But when you have your virtual assistants doing your prospecting for you, make sure you have them help you out with your lead follow-up. Have them stay in touch, and you’ll get more listings, because when we’re busy, we don’t have the time we need to follow up. VAs can fill in the gaps because they’re not busy going on listing appointments. Task #4: Convert Buyer Leads A virtual assistant can help you convert your buyer leads into buyer clients. When I first started in real estate, I worked as a buyer’s agent for about two years. I’ve been part of a team that worked with many buyers, and I’ve had several agents work for me who worked with buyers. The point is, I know the territory. VAs can handle all the tasks involved in converting a buyer lead into a buyer client. They can help with the buyers by calling or emailing them, setting listing alerts, and developing rapport. Obviously, you must be very careful to ensure compliance with regulations. You want to ensure the assistants don’t talk about anything related to real estate. They just need to get the information about the type of house the potential buyer is looking for, then send that information over to an agent who can find the buyer a house that works for them. The assistant’s job is to find opportunities for the buyer’s agent to land a lead. Of course, there are many steps to the buyer’s side of real estate, not all of which are discussed here. But a virtual assistant — with proper training, supervision, and experience — can accomplish almost all of those steps, turning your buyer leads into buyer clients. Task #5: Help You Get the Listing One great benefit of a virtual assistant is that he or she can help you obtain listings.
12
Recently, an agent I know secured a $3 million listing. He told the seller he would put together a floor plan of the house and post it on the MLS and through all his other marketing channels. The virtual assistant put together a floor plan for the Realtor®, and he got that $3 million listing. VAs can also help you enhance your listing photos. If you want to hire a professional photographer, VAs can find the best one in your area. They can also write the copy for listings. For example, you could tell the client you have an in-house marketing copywriter who writes all the remarks for the listings. An assistant could put that together for you. Your virtual assistant can help set up single-property websites, with virtual tours or listing videos. He/she could also help you manage Facebook ads. There are many different ways a VA can help with your online marketing. Task #6: Stop Interruptions Interruptions are the number-one killer of productivity. Every single time you are interrupted, it breaks your train of thought and distracts you from focusing on the task at hand. As a result, you aren’t as efficient and lose productivity. For example, I turn off my phone ringer when I go on a listing appointment. When I’m busy presenting to a seller about why they should hire me, I don’t want my phone to start ringing or to start a conversation that interrupts the sales presentation. If you take the call, you’re ignoring your current client; however, if you don’t take the call, your potential client will believe you’re ignoring him/her, and that he/she is not a priority. It’s the same principle with other tasks. Interruptions are almost always deal-breakers. You can have a VA filter your calls for you. All inbound calls to my office go through a virtual assistant. If you have the right phone system, the assistant can filter the calls and transfer the important ones directly to you. If a Realtor® is calling about a listing and has a question that’s answered right in the MLS, your assistant can tell that Realtor® to email you, or send the call to your voicemail so you can work in a more focused manner and be more productive. The VA can also coordinate showings, and you can request in the MLS that all listing inquiries go through the VA, so he/she can filter them for you. As you can see, you can have a VA do a great deal to help you be as productive as possible when you’re working.
13
Task #7: Serve as Listing Coordinator A virtual assistant can help you with paperwork — for instance, making sure the disclosures are filled out and signed. An assistant can go through a listing checklist and ensure you have compiled all the required information for the new listing, and can also follow up with the seller to obtain any overlooked information. VAs can get the document and send it to the sellers using DocuSign, or whichever document-signing program you prefer. In addition, they can help you prepare for listing appointments by filling out disclosures and listing agreements before you meet with potential sellers. I’m not suggesting VAs should negotiate real estate contracts. That’s beyond the scope of an unlicensed individual; however, what they can do is ensure all the paperwork is handled correctly. In effect, VAs can do everything you need to do for a new listing — e.g., they can enhance the pictures, put together floor plans of that listing, and enter all of that into the MLS. Because assistants can be part of the MLS, you can sometimes give them direct access to the site. Assistants can put your listings onto your website, put together fliers for your listings, put together marketing, and run ads promoting your listings. They can schedule an open house; they can put together open house paperwork and invite other agents to the open house. The list goes on and on. If you have any listings with work that must be done on the house, VAs can also help you find the best contractors for repairs. For example, when I was busy selling real estate, I really needed a flooring repair contractor. I told my assistant to call all the flooring people in a certain area, and we found a great contractor to fix a floor. I’ve also had my assistants obtain quotes on roofs, and for flooring repairs on another house. There are many different things a VA can do for you to free up your time. Sometimes, all you need to do is send a quick email, letting him/her know you need a flooring contractor from a specific location. The assistant can do the research, make the call, and set up an appointment for you. Essentially, anything you can do on the phone or on the Internet — except for negotiating contracts or doing license activity, of course — can be done by an assistant. Assistants functioning as listing coordinators can also obtain feedback in every showing by emailing and calling the showing agent. Then, they can relay that feedback to you and the seller. They can
14
update the seller on current marketing efforts, and they can do all of the marketing necessary for the listing. They can then set up open houses. Assistants can submit all the paperwork to your broker to make sure your file is in compliance, then enter all of your contact data, the client’s contact information, and other relevant information into the database. Further, they can order the house title and send the title company all the information required to coordinate the closing. They can help you prepare for listing appointments. For example, VAs can put together all the information in your pre-listing packet, listing agreement, and disclosures. You might have them pull some comps, then tell you what comps they think could be used for a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA). You can put the CMA together, but they can do most of the research to make the CMA process faster and smoother. They can also dig up old information on a seller. Perhaps you didn’t realize that the seller had the house on the market two years ago, at a much lower price than what they’re selling it for now, and Virtual assistants can help you with all aspects of closing coordination. In all likelihood, the most important thing they can do is call the lender weekly to get an update on the loan and forward you that update so you can keep track of the process. Assistants can also get codes for surveys. Once you pick a certain surveyor, they can send the quote and the survey order to the sellers for their signatures. They can schedule the closing time. They can also coordinate closing times with all the different parties to ensure it will work for everybody. They can answer questions for the lenders, and sometimes, they can be aggressive with chasing down answers and solutions for lenders whenever they hit a brick wall. A closing coordinator can push the entire transaction forward, and not wait around for a single person to get this information back to somebody else. A closing coordinator can also get information on repairs. They can find quotes for repairs that need to be done. you can gauge the seller’s motivation using that information. Task #8: Serve as Closing Coordinator
15
They can keep everybody updated. They can also submit all the documents to your broker to make sure you’re in compliance for the file. They can also track down one missing signature on one piece of paper and send that to the party before closing. Task #9: Help Manage Your Database A virtual assistant can oversee and manage your past client and sphere-of-influence database. In this case, the first thing you’re likely going to want them to do is put all of your data in one spot in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system so you can follow up with them. Maybe you want to put all your past clients and your sphere-of-influence leads into a regular email. A VA can coordinate this process. Maybe you want to call clients every quarter or twice a year or once a year. VAs can keep track of all their phone numbers. Maybe you want to do a mailing to your past clients. VAs can research and update your past clients and your sphere-of-influence leads’ mailing addresses. They can also manage your email marketing for you. They can either write — or find someone to write — emails to stay in touch with your past clients, then send them to you for approval. They can put all your emails into an email management system, such as Mad Mimi or iContact. Then, they can queue up, send the emails, and manage the entire email database so you get more referrals from your past clients by keeping your name constantly in front of them. VAs can even put together a Christmas card for you each year, by putting together your mailing database, getting your approval on the Christmas card, then coordinating the mailout process. They can also manage all of your past clients on Facebook so you’re “friending” every one of your past clients on Facebook. I’m going to be discussing social media marketing later, but a lot of social media marketing centers on staying in touch with your past clients and your sphere of influence. If you know who they are and you’ve managed them in a database, you can also add them as Facebook friends. Past clients will send you business. According to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR), 86% of buyers and sellers would use their agent again and recommend their agent to others.
16
In addition, most activity in the general real estate business comes from past client referrals or from your sphere of influence. That’s where most of your competitors are getting their business. Why don’t you get more business by leveraging this database? Task #10: Build and Manage Your Website Have you been dreaming about building a great online presence but never found the time to do it? Some virtual assistants can design, lay out, and build your entire website. Hire a VA, check in regularly, but let them do all the work. VAs can help you with all your online marketing. First, they can build out your website. Then, they can post blog articles for you, or find good blog articles. They can also work on your Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Or, if you don’t want your own website just yet, you can have the assistant look at existing websites for you and improve your online presence. For instance, go to Google, type in your name, and see what shows up. Make a list of all those websites, which might include sites like Zillow, Realtor®.com, and your broker’s website. You can write a noteworthy bio on those websites and get more business just from the people who look up your name. Right now, if someone Googles your name, the sites they’re pulling up are, in a sense, your websites. Start with those sites first. Start with all the publicly available websites someone will run into looking for you online, and improve those. Then, have your assistant work on building you your own personal website. Task #11: Social Media Marketing Your virtual assistant can help you out with your social media marketing. I recommend you ask your VA to “friend” every single one of your past clients and people from your sphere of influence on Facebook. Once you’ve added these individuals as your friends, you can assign your VA to find content to post so that you can maintain contact with your past clients and your sphere of influence. Follow that with delegating a VA to leverage Instagram and start posting pictures of homes there. Your VA can announce your new listings, post that you just sold a listing, or provide interesting information about a new listing you secured.
17
For example, let’s say you just got a new listing in a historic district near a great coffee shop. You could post something about the coffee shop, tag the coffee shop, and write, “Looking for a house close to this coffee shop? Check out my home on ABC Road, within walking distance to this shop.” By posting your listing and tagging the coffee shop, you can gain exposure from people who follow that coffee shop online and have an interest in the neighborhood. Virtual assistants can also post on Instagram. They can get a lot of neat pictures and advertise that way. If you really want to utilize this site, you can have your assistant build an area-specific page. For example, he/she could build a page about a specific part of town. Let’s say you specialize in real estate in Atlantic Beach, Fla., or Riverside, a Jacksonville, Fla., neighborhood. You could have your assistant build a page titled, “I love Atlantic Beach,” or “I love Riverside.” Start posting useful information there, getting fans in that area, and building your web presence. Then, if you want to go even further, your VA can also help manage and run your Facebook ads to get more business from paid Facebook advertising. There are many online resources for information on Facebook and other social media sites to get business. Have your VA find these articles and implement them for you. Here’s the process I recommend: Rather than just telling your virtual assistants to do it and having them go about it their own way, make sure they have a plan to follow. The first thing I would do is have the VAs do their research on all the different articles online that show them how to use social media to grow a real estate business. Based off those articles, they would put together a written plan. Then, you should review that plan, give your input, tweak it, and finalize it. Once that’s done, you can manage them as they implement the plan. You’ll get much better results when they have a real blueprint to follow, rather than relying on their own whims and ideas. They’ll be more accountable, and you can manage them to ensure you get results. Task #12: Accounting and Bookkeeping Until I hired my first virtual assistant, I didn’t realize I could hire someone with an accounting degree to help manage my finances. This individual can work either as an accountant or bookkeeper to help you manage your finances. A virtual assistant can perform all of the following tasks: ● track your bank accounts
18
● track your bank account debits and credits, and put all that information into your accounting software ● track your expenses ● tell you how much money you’re spending ● tell you how much money you can expect to come in from your current listings ● reconcile credit card statements, vendor statements, and bank account statements ● ensure all charges go into the accounting system and appropriate files, minimizing the amount of taxes you must pay Anything a staff bookkeeper can do for you, you can have a VA do for you, as well.
19
Part 2: Find And Hire Your New Assistant What Makes a Good Assistant?
Determining the type of assistant you need depends on two things: the kind of work you want done and the type of person you need to do it. Sometimes, what you need is someone who thinks fast, not necessarily someone with specific experience in a certain range of tasks. For me, when I was on the hunt for a VA, the first thing I wanted to know was whether the individual had a high level of aptitude. I wanted to know that this person could easily handle the challenges I delegated without hand-holding. Test even your virtual candidates as if you were hiring an in-house worker. Don’t rely on a sales pitch to get the job. Assign a task to assess common sense, intelligence, organization, drive, and basic skills. Aptitude vs. Experience There are two qualifying things you should determine before you hire. The first, which I’ve described, is whether that person possesses a reasonable level of intelligence so they won’t constantly need clarification. The second thing you should look for is how much experience the person has. Deciding whether aptitude or experience is most vital to the job is the first step in choosing a good assistant. You must think carefully about all the possible scenarios in your work situation and decide which of the two would be most crucial. When Skills and Experience are More Important Sometimes, you need someone who has actual experience in the task(s) you want performed. For instance, if you need a graphic designer who will create graphics for you, you need someone with experience in that field. It would be a waste of time to get someone new to the job, then train him/her to produce graphics and logos. Therefore, keep in mind that for specialized fields like graphic design or tax accounting, someone with intelligence won’t be enough. You will need someone with relevant, professional experience. It’s important that they’ve done similar jobs successfully before.
20
When Aptitude is More Important In other situations, I might choose someone with a high level of intelligence and not put emphasis on previous experience as much. For example, I might need someone who will communicate directly with sphere of influence leads, as well as help me with real estate marketing. In this case, I would need a person who can multitask and is smart enough to figure things out quickly. I might have him/her learn some company branding from me before they can do what I need them to do. Only an intelligent person who can follow instructions will fit the bill in this case, even if they don’t have previous experience. When you hire someone with a high level of intelligence, you won’t have to do as much work to get them up-to-speed; they’ll quickly adapt to your requirements. Personally, I like to hire smart people who can handle themselves in any situation and get the work done without a lot of oversight. After all, what’s the point of doing business with them if they can’t work to solve problems on their own without needing my input every single time?
21
Where Should Your Assistant Be Located? A major factor you should consider when hiring someone is their location. . Where they are located will often determine other factors, such as how much you will pay them and what other incentives you offer. You can add this to the questions in your job advertisement, or you can tell them to include where they’re from in the email. Most qualified candidates will have their location listed on their resumes. Let’s focus on hiring from the Philippines for a moment, as that’s where I’ve had the most success finding, hiring, and keeping virtual assistants (VAs) who are both loyal and affordable. I pay attention to their specific location because experience has taught me that people who come from major cities often don’t stay on the job for long. There are so many job opportunities in big cities that it’s best to hire people farther on the outskirts. You can do online research to help you determine which cities or areas are best for hiring VAs. However, while you want to stay away from the big cities, you also don’t want to hire from a place where there’s spotty Internet connection. Here are the possibilities: In Your Office Do you want an assistant who works alongside you in your office? This would be someone local to you, and may be a more expensive option than a virtual assistant. Also, if you aren’t at the office yourself regularly so you can shepherd them through tasks, this is not a practical idea. You should
also heed my warning from Part 1. Virtually, in Local Area
You could also find a VA who lives in your area, and thus could accompany you on certain tasks. Depending on what part of the country you live in, this could be a pricier option (for example, if
you live in New York City or San Francisco). The same warning applies here. Virtually, in the Country, But in a More Affordable Area
Another option would be to hire a VA who lives in the country but not in your area, which could save you money if your area has a higher cost of living. For example, if you live in New York City, you could hire a VA who lives in the Midwest to save money on his or her salary.
22
Virtually, But in Another Country that is More Affordable The final option, and probably the most affordable of these, is to hire a VA who lives outside of your country. Depending on what you are looking for in a VA, this is a solid choice.
23
Where Will You Find Your Assistant? A Beginner’s Mistake to Avoid - Searching ThroughWebsites Instead of Posting a Great Ad You will waste far more time than necessary if you fail to craft a great job advertisement that will draw the right candidates your way. As a young agent, I found myself searching sites and reviewing resumés, and it was highly inefficient. If you’re trying to find someone in the United States, consider these sources: ● CraigsList - A classic website, this one still works. Furthermore, it’s cheaper to post here on average than other sites, which often charge per click or impression. For that reason, you might want to start there. ● Indeed - Indeed.com offers various screening options and aggregates other job sites for applicants. ● LinkedIn - This professional network makes it easy to view someone’s experience and background. ● Your Sphere of Influence - Word of mouth is still a great way to find an assistant. Ask members of your community if they know someone who might be a good fit. If you would rather find someone who lives outside of the U.S., here are some websites to try: ● OnlineJobs.PH - Our company has found success with this website, where you can hire Filipinos for longer term work. ● Upwork, 123Employee, MyOutDesk -These websites are ideal if you don’t want to pay or manage the person directly, but it often means finding freelancers that might not stick around. They are typically best for short-term or one-time projects. ● WorldWide101, AVirtual - These are other websites that hire VAs from around the world.
24
Breaking Down the Elements of a Job Ad Ad Headline
The title of the ad is arguably one of the most crucial parts. Without it, you won’t attract any attention and no one will apply to the job. Here are three different styles for the same job; decide which one will draw your ideal candidate. ● Catchy - Are YOUR pictures worth a thousand (or more) words? I’m looking for you. ● Specific - Remote Graphic Designer Needed ASAP to Assist Real Estate Agent with Marketing ● Both - Are YOUR Pictures Worth 1,000 Words? You could be my next graphic designer. Ad Body The body of the ad should tell the potential candidate exactly what you are looking for in a VA and the requirements they will need to fulfill the role. You can break down the body of the ad into a few different parts to make it easier to write: ● Overview of job - Summarize in a few lines what the job consists of. For example, if you are looking for a VA to help with scouting leads and getting in touch with them to find out if they are interested in selling, say that. ● Qualifications (list of qualifications needed for applicants) - List the qualities that you feel are necessary in the role, whether general (impeccable phone manners) or specific (spreadsheet proficiency). ● Details about job - List a few other details about the job, such as a compensation range and the hours you will require them to work. This section should be less about the job itself and more about what they can expect. ● Details about you or company - Tell them a little bit about yourself, your background, your company or the like, so they know who they will be working with. Call To Action (CTA) The CTA, or call to action, should invite the potential candidate to apply for the position. Give specific instructions, in hopes that you can weed out those who do not follow your instructions carefully. When we hire someone, we like to include a few different points of instruction, such as: ● Email me at {Email) with “Applying For {Position}” in the Subject Line.
25
● “Please send examples of your work,” if it’s a specialized position. ● “Please record yourself reading this script,” if they will be talking to people. ● “How would you respond to this scenario?” if it’s a communication support role. A Note on Test Tasks Included in the Job Description (CTA) An easy way to do a test task in the application is to tell prospective applicants to send an email with the line, “Application for the position of a virtual assistant” as the subject. You can also ask them to send answers to some questions in the email. This was a method I established when it became too stressful to go through the hundreds of applications I received. I realized it was a waste of my time to go through 100-200 resumés, knowing that most of them exaggerate their qualifications. The questions I ask are chosen for specific reasons. The first thing the email will do is help you identify people who won’t or who can’t completely follow instructions. It could be because they didn’t pay enough attention. You should avoid them. This is a much better strategy than just allowing them to hit a button and apply through a website. I vary the words I ask them to include in the subject line, depending on whether the advertisement is for a graphic designer, SEO specialist, writer, or another position. Once I have given the instruction, I can quickly filter out the applicants who didn’t follow my instructions. This is another great way to weed out unqualified candidates. Going through this process, I’m usually able to drastically reduce the number of applications from 200 to fewer than 40. That’s about 80% fewer resumés to go through and 80% of my time and effort saved. Job Ad Mistakes to Avoid ● NOT trying more than one ad if one version does not get enough response. On most job websites, you can see how many views your ad is getting. Make use of this statistic and see what works. ● Getting attached to your ad because you spend so much time on it. Do not be afraid to change the ad completely! The ad has a function to fulfill; if it’s not drawing candidates, it is worthless. ● Trying to make your ad perfect. Sure, spelling and grammar are important, but a beautifully written ad is not going to necessarily make a difference. You are doing the hiring, not the other way around!
26
● Not testing different job ad sites if you’re not getting a good response. While Craigslist is cheap and we recommend starting with it, you want to treat the sites the same way you treat the ads — and move on if you don’t get satisfactory results. ● Not using a direct CTA like “email me,” and letting candidates apply on the job site. Indeed and other job websites offer the option to “apply immediately” using a saved resume on the site, but this will not help you weed through candidates effectively, and only the most committed and interested people will actually take the steps to apply separately. ● (Virtual Only) Not specifying the hours you expect them to work. If you are hiring someone in a different time zone, it’s imperative to include work hours for the position in the ad. Don’t forget to specify the time zone. ● Not asking questions in your ad to screen out the people who are simply applying to everything and didn’t read your ad. Again, this is where a direct CTA is important, as well as specific instructions pertaining to the role that will ensure you get serious applicants only.
27
Job Advertisement Examples Here are a few job ad examples we have used in the past to offer you some ideas. First, some advice...
To get a good feel for how other entrepreneurs in your shoes have hired assistants, you can research online and see what kind of job ads others are posting. This way, you’ll be able to brainstorm based on their ideas, and conduct competitive research. You can also research the “going rates” for what people pay for these tasks. That will give you parameters and some idea of what you might offer to attract the best talent. Also, make sure you stay abreast of currency conversion rate. You can check Google for the current market rates in different countries. Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to put together an ad that will draw the best candidates for the position. Here are a few templates to give you some suggestions. These are modified versions of ads we have posted in the past. Example One - Assistant for Basic Tasks Are You the Human Version of a Swiss Army Knife? I Need You! Looking for a full time virtual assistant who can figure things out fast with minimal help from their manager. Below is more information about the position available. If you get this job, your responsibilities would include: ★ Queuing up emails for marketing ★ Managing email marketing campaigns ★ Email management ★ Data analysis/entry into Google spreadsheets
★ Data analysis/entry into Excel, Word or other programs ★ Research using the Internet or other information databases
28
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54Powered by FlippingBook